Interest free loans get expensive

Bullwhip29 points out an article that says the BC first time buyer loans program will likely cost the government twice as much as they claim.

“The Ministry of Finance estimates that for every dollar of loan proceeds under HOME, taxpayers will lose about 19 cents in administrative costs and foregone interest. This estimate ignores the cost of default losses that may arise if borrowers are unable to repay their loans.”

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Vatican row as Chinese official invited to organ transplant meet

Ethics experts and human rights lawyers slammed the Vatican Tuesday for inviting a top Chinese health official to an organ trafficking summit despite concerns the Asian giant still uses tissue from executed prisoners.

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Three researchers—former Canadian Member of Parliament David Kilgour, Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, and American investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann concluded that the Chinese regime sustained a brisk organ transplantation industry for over a decade by harvesting the organs of Uyghurs, Tibetans, house Christians, and primarily a massive prison population of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. “It is extremely concerning when highly respected international institutions such as the Vatican provide a platform for perpetrating unverified claims about reform of organ donation in China,” said Rogers.http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2219851-chinese-transplant-doctor-accused-of-ordering-executions-to-speak-at-vatican/

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The newcomer isn’t around and you guys make a mess. Who did approve this organ harvesting line of business to be posted on the housing forum?

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“With reserves dropping below the psychologically important threshold of $3 trillion, this will further ramp up pressure on Chinese policy makers to prevent the further draining of reserves,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Singapore. “The Chinese government and the PBOC are now facing a tremendous battle to stem further significant capital outflows while also trying to maintain confidence in the yuan.”

Either way, Chinese buyers will have a lot less ammo in the year to come: (i) if flows continues, the yuan depreciates much further and their purchasing power sinks; (ii) if flows are greatly reduced, there is no money to spend in Vancouver real estate.

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If they really want to get serious they should take everyone’s passport away.

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At the very least, that should be the penalty if it’s later found out they exceeded their annual limit. 5 year travel ban. I would think that would be a huge deterrent. Not much point in having your money offshore if you can’t visit it.

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The loans also serve as a booby trap for a potential NDP government trying to moderate prices. If prices go down, the defaulting loans will add to expenditures and require either program cuts, tax increases, or an increased deficit. Of course if the BC Liberals are re-elected that will apply to them too, so look out for more schemes to prop up prices based on off-the-books future contingent liabilities.

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Loan amounts would be insignificant if NDP cancelled the program as soon as they took power.

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” Sydney property boom shows signs of slowing. Number of Chinese buyers dwindles” http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/world/1194165/sydney-property-boom-shows-signs-of-slowing Few listings, even fewer buyers: sounds familiar? As the buyers have drifted off, the sellers have also started to back away and the number of home listings is down 25% from a year ago, according to CoreLogic RP Data. This is all yet to show up in a decline in prices in Australia. In the nation’s eight biggest cities, home prices surged a further 0.7% in January even as the volume of transactions was lower. But some real estate experts and hedge fund investors say that it may be only a matter of time before prices also start to crumble. One big concern is the drop off in the number of Chinese buyers, following a crackdown by Beijing on capital outflows and Australia’s tightened restrictions on… Read more »

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Just want to point out that the “Epoch Times” is basically a mouthpiece for Falun Gong – not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that…just need to be aware of all the biases.

😉

For instance, recently I read an article in the Epoch Times newspaper claiming China would be devastated by a US Trade War, whereas the US would remain relatively unscathed.

Hmmmm…..that sounded unlikely to me, considering how dependent the US is on manufactured goods from China.

Then later I read a piece by another economist who concluded that a full blown trade war between the two would likely push the US to the brink of recession, i.e. zero GDP growth.

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I agree with their conclusion. The trade imbalance between the US and China is huge. A 10% drop in Chinese exports to the US is far greater than a 10% drop the other way. I think Trump is right to call out China and get a better trade deal. If Canada is smart, we’ll piggyback them. At present, China steals whatever Western IT and IP that it can and then hands it over to their industries and favours them both legally and financially. So many Western companies have been screwed trying to do business in China. Even the Chinese don’t trust their system which is why big money flees to places like Vancouver. I think the reality is that China will have to come to an agreement because they have no other option. If China can’t maintain economic growth, there… Read more »

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“At worst, the US gets no growth and some angry voters.”

That’s enough for the Republicans to lose control of Congress in 2018. I don’t see the CCP losing control in that time frame, no matter what. That’s the advantage the Chinese have.

As I’ve said before I do think we need to put pressure on China to clean up its act. But the first thing Trump did was to cancel the TPP, which would have severely weakened China’s influence in Asian trade. That’s characteristic of the guy – he just can’t see the big picture.

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True. He should hire you as his economic advisor with a specialty in understanding Chinese trade and purchasing habits. You could put all your posts here over a decade on the addendum to your resume.

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China will never clean up its act as long as it’s run by gangsters, thieves and general vermin.

They need a revolution and I hope Trump’s policies destabilize them enough to send that shithole over the edge.

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>China would be devastated by a US Trade War, whereas the US would remain relatively unscathed.

US would remain RELATIVELY unscathed? That’s exactly true. RELATIVE to the destruction it would cause China the use would be unscathed.

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Short term it would be very tough on US, but long term it wouldn’t be an issue. US has a massive trade deficit with China. US in long term would either manufacture more goods themselves are import from other countries and likely those other countries would end up importing more from the US. China would implode in short order under the weight of their massive credit bubble…total disaster, not sad.

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“US dollar rises due to hints Federal Reserve will hike interest rates in March”, The Independent

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Inflation mostly caused by weak Sterling…he’s trying to talk the Pound up so they don’t have to increase rates.

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I’ll make an (un)bold prediction: Carney will NEVER raise UK rates. He’s very good at huffing and puffing though. Even if inflation gets to 5% he will just say its “temporary”. The only way he raises rates is if there is a serious run on sterling (where it suddenly falls to par with the EUR and the USD) and where investors shun UK government debt. I think the same for Canada, Poloz only move rates up if currency goes above 1.50+ vs USD.

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Carney has never increased an interest rate in his life… He probably doesn’t even know which button to push on his keyboard to make it happen.

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West side detached? Might as well be a different country.

I don’t go to the west side anymore. Am I aloud in without my passport?

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Question for the tax types on this board, wouldn’t the interest portion (of the BC first time buyer loan) that is deferred for upto 5 years be a taxable benefit to the buyer? and income tax apply?

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No. That applies if your employer gives you an interest free loan because it’s part of your compensation. But government handouts aren’t taxable unless explicitly designated as such.

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High sales again. People buying on the price dip? Or renewed strength?

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Sales are far from high, but sales/listings ratio so far is higher than normal as listings are low.

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I see. Sales in themselves are certainly lower than last year. But I don’t think they are any lower than the 10 year average ( happy to be corrected).

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They are lower than the 10 year average….so far.

5 days of data is not enough to go on.

But, the mini surge of west side detached sales the last few days may be over.

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Can someone link the historical paulb stats again please? There was a spreadsheet someone was maintaining or scraping.

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How about that Canadian weather? screaming back towards the mean. Lotus eaters are munching on bacon tonight… they wont admit it.., but they want to survive…

Out here in RE lala land we stop our cars and dance around falling ice and snow accumulation.

I kicked a seal off the marina dock tonight, i said ‘brother, im eyeing your blubber’

Anecdotally, an interesting fellow with several dwellings, laments that three of his sheds couldnt take the snow, and collapsed.

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Every sentence in this article makes me want to vomit, especially this one:

“The Trudeau government has ambitions plans to boost the number of Chinese visitors to Canada, and last fall, the Prime Minister announced that Ottawa will open seven additional visa-application centres in China.”

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Disturbing. These paragraphs caught my attention: “Canada is an extremely popular destination for Chinese citizens seeking temporary residence in North America. The numbers of Chinese obtaining 10-year temporary resident visas – which allow them to stay in Canada for up to six months, each year, for a decade – has exploded in popularity. In 2012, 82,636 of these Canadian visas were issued to Chinese citizens and in 2015, 337,393 were issued. Since these visas are good for 10 years, it means more than a million Chinese citizens currently hold these documents, which allow them temporary residence in Canada.” Everyone purs scorn on Oracle. But he/she might be onto something regarding 10year visas. I would certianly like if that program was scaled back significantly. It allows little control on the behavior of literally millions of people. Anyway, Mc Callum is the… Read more »

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A personal friend of mine – tax accountant – often speaks about cross border tax matters: So what is the solution? Exactly what we have blawged about before! We still believe that a more effective mechanism would be for the government to require that for any real estate transaction over $500K, a “T4”-like form must be reported to the CRA with the real names of the beneficial owners and also the agents and lawyers on the transaction. This will not affect the vast majority of Canadians, based on the average sale price of a home in Canada (not including Vancouver and Toronto) of well under $500K.[6] Such a real-time reporting requirement would mean that foreign purchaser’s home country can obtain information on their real property holdings via Canada’s various tax treaties or tax information exchange agreements. As a result, Canadian… Read more »

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He us putting in clear and compelling form what many people including myself have been saying fir years. Make the ownership of RE public and transparent, and you put an immefuate end to the use of Vancouver RE as a way to launder money.

Chances tgat Christy Clark will do thus? Zero. She kniws that this single change has the potential to stop money inflows from China and other countries almost overnight. She will never acknowledge it of course, but she will only do things that are no impediment to ever higher prices! Lying with a smile, as usual.

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They can’t make RE transactions truly public because of privacy laws. Would you consent to your name, property address and purchase price being published. We can count on industry-government oversight either because it’s just not working

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Come on off it, it’s always been public. Anyone can get a copy of the title of any property which shows the complete sale and mortgage history. Note also that no contract conferring any interest in RE is valid unless registered on the title.

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similar to story about white rock a couple of weeks ago. imho there is something else going on here. rentals/leases not being renewed as owners are deliberately forcing them out by jacking up rates to the moon. take a wild guess what happens once all the tenants are gone???

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Yes it would still be hard to rent the whole house out for that. 1.2m in a savings account almost pays that much.

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I have a relative that is moving up and has put an offer on a house in Burnaby. Current owners are based in China but they bought the house for their daughter who was studying in Vancouver but has now moved to Toronto. Although the owners live in China they have stipulated “Residents of Canada” on the sale documentation. By doing this they are evading over $200,000 in Canadian with-holding taxes. Doesn’t Canada link the purchase and sale of property to a Canada Revenue tax code. If not, why not? Quite disgusting if this is really allowed to go on.

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Who is the owner listed on the title? If the daughter, she is legally a Canadian resident for tax purposes because she spends most of the year in Canada.

If not, your relative had better have a good lawyer. It’s the buyer, not the seller who is legally responsible for withholding the tax and remitting to CRA, and they can come after the buyer for the money after the sale if this is not dune.

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The owners are the parents in China. They have sworn they are resident. My understanding is that the buyer is legally responsible if the owners are non-resident. Here the owners are saying they’re Canadian resident. What more is the buyer to do? What about the real estate agent and the lawyers who don’t question the owner’s statement. The simple answer is to link a Canada Revenue Tax number to every purchase and sale. The fact that this is not being done argues that the government is being complicit in this scam.

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Why can’t the government collect the data and confirm that people who say they are resident are actually paying taxes in Canada as a resident? It happens in the UK and I’m sure in any country that is serious about tax evasion. My sneaky suspicion is that the real estate lobby is very much against it.

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Your suspicion is not only correct, but fully explains the behaviour of our elected official. Especially our Premier Christy Clark. They want to circus of Chinese buyers to go on, as they get elected on that premise. Many people are getting incredibly rich out of this scam.

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Pretty easy – Ask them to provide a residency assessment from CRA. If not, then do the normal withholding – pretty easy actually. And – under a signed agreement – the seller can not back out. . .

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Sadly I noticed a house near me in the 7000 block of Kitchener Street, Burnaby just sold after months on the market. I had enjoyed watching it and the one directly across from it languish on the market. The listed price seemed very sticky. I’ve no idea what it sold for. I really wonder who decides to buy NOW when falling price articles are plastered across all media.

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I’ve had several people ask me, aren’t you going to buy now that prices are falling? Lots of people see this as a dip, a rare opportunity to buys without as much pressure as usual.

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Again i repeat the cause of the recent bubble spike:

10-year visitor visas + foreign student visas.

Rich parents send their kids to school in canada. They buy Johhny a house. They join Johny up to 6 months a year. Eventually, Johny gets PR.

FBTax stopped these parents from buying. They have to wait until Johny gets PR. In the meantime, the local PR already here continued with their illegal money inflows and buying real estate.

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Wait until these 10 year visitor visa allowable time in Canada is increased to 8 months from 6. Just wait. 8 months Canada and 4 months motherland.

1 million Chinese have this visa. And they won’t have to pay income taxes here but will own all of the detached.

Then Canadian citizenship worthless. Trudeau and MacCallum would have destroyed Canada.

10 yr visa staying per year should be reduced to 2-3 months per year max.

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You dummy, people can come as a tourist for more than 2 months per year.

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I just find it amusing that you know nothing about the only topic you ever post about.

You surely know that 10 year visas are good for stays of 2 years but after 6 months you’d likely have to file a tax return?

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currently under discussion is how many buyers that received PR/citizenship “shortly after” buying RE will get a FBT refund (in addition to those that had a work permit)

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not being a permabull or anything like that, but Jan is done. game was changed on chinese new years. i am anticipating the numbers to swing around sharply in feb/mar with possibly more supply coming online closer to the election (but at much higher asking prices). i have heard thru the grapevine that offers are being made subject to buyer legally not having to pay FBT. some desperate sellers will accept terms as they have no choice while others will simply terminate listings

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WSJ: For Chinese Home Buyers, Seattle Is the New Vancouver By LAURA KUSISTO and KIM MACKRAEL Updated Feb. 7, 2017 6:34 p.m. ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-chinese-home-buyers-seattle-is-the-new-vancouver-1486500393 When Anna Riley, a Seattle-area real-estate agent, held an open house for a new $2.3 million listing in the tony city of Bellevue late last month, the pool of prospective buyers was different from the usual assortment of tech magnates, sports stars and chief executives. Twenty groups of buyers visited the property in the Seattle metro area—and all of them were Chinese. “Every single one,” said Ms. Riley, an agent at Windermere Real Estate, noting that Asian investors had typically, before last year, accounted for about a quarter of the firm’s prospective buyers. Chinese real-estate buyers are suddenly descending on the Seattle region. Some are lured by perceptions the coastal city is a bargain, others by… Read more »

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WSJ: For Chinese Home Buyers, Seattle Is the New Vancouver By LAURA KUSISTO and KIM MACKRAEL Updated Feb. 7, 2017 6:34 p.m. ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-chinese-home-buyers-seattle-is-the-new-vancouver-1486500393 When Anna Riley, a Seattle-area real-estate agent, held an open house for a new $2.3 million listing in the tony city of Bellevue late last month, the pool of prospective buyers was different from the usual assortment of tech magnates, sports stars and chief executives. Twenty groups of buyers visited the property in the Seattle metro area—and all of them were Chinese. “Every single one,” said Ms. Riley, an agent at Windermere Real Estate, noting that Asian investors had typically, before last year, accounted for about a quarter of the firm’s prospective buyers. Chinese real-estate buyers are suddenly descending on the Seattle region. Some are lured by perceptions the coastal city is a bargain, others by… Read more »

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The idea of an ultra-high-speed commuter railroad between Seattle and Vancouver has been around for roughly 20 years

Indeed it has, it was one of the pet projects of Glen Clark, who wanted to build a rail tunnel at New Westminster.

Tell you what: if it gets built before Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal high speed rail, I’ll buy you a case of beer. 🙂

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the big wildcard here is HAM. this would be an ideal mega project for them to toss a few tens of billions at. phase 2 would provide link to Portland and SF.

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“Chinese real-estate buyers are suddenly descending on the Seattle region.”

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B.C. securities regulator issues freezing order as it probes group of companies

The B.C. Securities Commission has issued a temporary order against a group of financial companies in order to stop directors from raising money while they are under investigation.

The notice alleges the companies raised about $36 million from over 300 investors. Many of the investors come from the Chinese community in B.C., according to Commission investigators.

The order says that in December 2014, Lim and Low agreed to cease trading and distributing securities until they provided documentation to the Commission about the investor exemptions claimed, and refunded all loans from people who did not qualify for an exemption. The steps weren’t completed, and within four months directors had incorporated FS Financial Services (Alberta) Inc., according to the Commission order.

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“Despite the detached market in turmoil mode, prices down 15% or more and sales plummeting, the condo market remains red hot, particularly at the entry level.”

“Just as I have noted in previous blogs and videos, Christy Clark’s first time buyer loan program would likely pin buyer against buyer in a royal rumble cage match to compete for the record low inventory available. Disguised in the form of free money, the provincial government and sellers alike have begun dangling the bait. It appears UBC Economist Tom Davidoff’s prophecy is coming true, buyers are devouring the loan, creating a feeding frenzy at the entry level.”

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It is so cheap to bribe people in BC. Their price is quite low. In this case, those buyers do not even realize that they are losing money thanks to Christy Clark’s loan for first time buyers. Prices in that segment of the market are going to increase more than the value of the loan.

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Why am I not surprised? The way the City and Province go about gathering data is, to put it mildly, very cavalier.

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another way to look at it is potentially 1/2 of vacant homeowners gaming the system. with all the smart home tech now available, it will be next to impossible to detect whether a residence is occupied or not. fat chance that authorities have the means, the energy, the time and the motivation to physically inspect homes in person. good luck mayor moonbeam!

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I frankly am going to disagree with you. It is not difficult to challenge people on their declaration. It is difficult to live in more than one place at a time, especially, if you have to be a resident such that you are filing your taxes from the address. So – Given that the auditing function (and budget) has been outsourced to one of the big four accounting firms, and this firm has no incentive to cover anything up – and in fact – they even have an incentive to extract those massive (I stress MASSIVE) penalties for lying (the penalties are so high that you basically will hand the keys over to the city) – I can’t see why anyone would chance it. Would you roll the dice on this? 25,000 . . . . now it’s all clear… Read more »

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would you get plastic surgery done in someone’s basement even though you drive a bently or mercedes?

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Well – when the bill comes – either the 1% or the $100,000, I think people will suddenly figure it out. Maybe you’re right – people just are not that bright and don’t understand what it really means. To me it’s clear – and now I will not plan to buy anything in Vancouver to keep for my vacation property. (And I have done that in the past).

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Would you leave your Shaughnessy home on Angus drive pushing your kids in a Safeway cart?

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Sounds about right to me. Their 14K estimate was from 2014 which was at the start of the crazy spike in offshore spec buying.